Just about a week ago now, “B.T.” (Before Trump), I spent one of the happiest evenings I can remember in the company of my younger daughter Sara, who is 11, and the ageless Chita Rivera. The site of our conjoining was Carnegie Hall. Sara and I were in a Second Tier box, to our unexpected delight, courtesy of a very gracious press agent (the aptly named Dan Fortune). Ms. Rivera appeared resplendently below us on the Carnegie Hall stage, making her solo Carnegie debut.
What a kick! And what a demonstration of unalloyed, living stage artistry.
For all the electrifying razzle-dazzle that her name conjures, Ms. Rivera delivered a performance of effortless, even under-stated (but never under-played) theatricality. The woman did not appear to break a sweat. Of course her exertion was enormous; she filled Carnegie Hall with music and movement virtually without a break (and entirely without an intermission) for almost two hours. The sold-out crowd came to its feet with a frequency seen lately only among Cubs fans at Wrigley.
Ms. Rivera schmoozed, she belted, she shimmied and scissor-kicked. She dallied with an assortment of talented younger guy guests (and a couple of older coots). She reignited the many klieg-lit Broadway roles that she has inhabited over the course of her 65-year career. She did so with a directness of expression that was the antithesis of oversized blowhard-ery. She did it with grace.
“A.T.” (After Trump), I must say this accomplishment looms ever larger in my mind. How does a performer project larger-than-life while preserving a perfectly translucent humanity? How do you command Carnegie Hall without smacking your audience upside the head?
She is 83-years-old and 5-foot-3-inches tall. She wore a clingy, sparkling red ensemble for much of the show, and spiky red heels throughout. She hoofed without the slightest ado. This is what I do, her movements seemed to say. This is what I have always done and always will do.
The scope of the evening was inescapably biographical. The show biz shtick, however, was eloquently distilled. Kander and Ebb, of course, dominated the conversation, as they have dominated Ms. Rivera’s Broadway career. Chicago (1975), The Rink (1984), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1993) and The Visit (2015) were all represented. (I cannot stop fixating on Presidents: Gerald Ford was in office in 1975, Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1993, and Barack Obama -- was it only last year?)
A kinetic Andy Karl served, as Ms. Rivera herself said, “as her Dick Van Dyke” for a pair of numbers — “A Whole Lotta Livin’ To Do” and “Rosie” — from Bye, Bye Birdie! (1960... JFK. No! On Opening Night, still Eisenhower). An incendiary version of “The Apple Doesn’t Fall,” from The Rink, sung as a cathartic duet with the incomparable Alan Cumming, was the evening’s high-point for me, and for Sara too, followed by Ms Rivera’s soulfully dizzying account of Jacques Brel’s Carousel, accompanied and ornamented exquisitely on violin by Itzhak Perlman.
With bated breath, Sara and I waited for the revisiting of West Side Story (Eisenhower again). When, at last the moment arrived, late in the proceedings, Ms. Rivera made time stop with too-brief tastes of “A Boy Like That” and a strutting “America” in tandem with Javier Munoz, Broadway’s current Hamilton. The NYC Gay Men’s Chorus then filled the aisles and blessed Carnegie Hall to the rafters with a heavenly “Somewhere” (while Ms. Rivera caught her breath and slipped into a top hat, red tie and tux).
“Nowadays” followed, Chicago’s 11:00 o’clock number, delivered here with Alan Cumming delectably replacing Gwen Verdon at the lady’s side. Steven Van Zandt — “Little Stevie” — Bruce Springsteen and Tony Soprano’s sidekick, was the night’s kinky non sequitur, joining Ms. Rivera for her first encore; teasing surprisingly delicate, filigreed chords from his electric guitar behind her bittersweet rendition of James Taylor’s “Secret of Life.” “Sweet Happy Life,” a 1960s pop samba, closed things out on a buoyant note that made sweet sense, “B.T.,” but only leaves me nostalgic and forlorn, “A.T.” All things considered, Sara and I would really rather be back in that Carnegie Hall box watching Chita Rivera go on forever.
Ah, well.